2008

To select items when S-LOCK is on
1 Press ESC to clear any selections.
2 In the browser, double-click Folder1:1 to activate it.
3 Click the S-LOCK button and latch it down to turn on the selection lock.
4 Click one of the circles in Folder1:2. Note that the circle is no longer
selectable.
5 Click one of the circles in Folder1:1. Grips appear, indicating that selection
is possible.
6 Double-click the root of the mechanical browser tree to reset activation.
7 Close the drawing. You can save the drawing, if required.
Components and Component Views
You may notice that folders provide some useful features, but they're probably
not different enough from blocks to convince you to change over to the
structure paradigm. The potential of mechanical structure begins to be revealed
when you start dealing with components and component views.
Component Views are basically folders with some extra rules that make them
more suitable for mechanical design. You typically need more than one view
to fully describe a part or assembly. Folders (and blocks before them) don't
offer any mechanism other than naming to associate multiple views of the
same part. Components and views solve this by allowing you to collect multiple
folders (component views) under a single Component.
A component can be a part or assembly, based on its contents (if a component
contains another component, then it's an assembly). The component also
gives you a place to store attributes like description and material. Components
don't actually contain geometry; they just group the views that contain the
geometry. This will begin to make more sense when you create some
components and component views.
Creating Part Components
1 Start a new drawing and draw a long thin rectangle (the edge view of a
plate).
76 | Chapter 5 Using Mechanical Structure